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This past week, Eduardo da Cunha, the former president of Brazils Chamber of Deputies the lower house of its national legislature was sentenced to 15 years in prison after he was convicted on corruption charges relating to his involvement in Brazils gargantuan grafting scandal, Operation Lava Jato (translated as Operation Car Wash). This fitting conclusion to da Cunhas sensational fall from power provided an almost surreal context for former President Dilma Rousseffs Monday lecture The Challenges for Democracy in Brazil. Indeed, it was da Cunha that accused Rousseff of malfeasance in the first place, having instigated the impeachment proceedings against her in late 2015. His conviction almost immediately prior to Rousseffs lecture, though, is not just a humorous bit of irony rather, it portends dark things for the health of Brazils relatively nascent democracy.

To the casual observer, Rousseffs cries of a political coup may have seemed like sour grapes the bitter rationalizations of a politician seeking to vilify her opponents and protect the legacy of her party. But upon deeper inspection, there is really no clearer way to describe her ouster than as an institutional coup detat based entirely in political factionalism.

Firstly, Rousseff found herself among the very few of Brazils political elite that were not implicated in Operation Lava Jato, which involved breathtaking corruption and grafting through Brazils state-owned oil company, Petrobras. As a result, the investigation of politicians implicated in the scandal proceeded, unabated, under her watch. While many in Rousseffs own party have been implicated in the scandal, including her predecessor and mentor Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, her political opponents have made it clear that they intended to impeach her so that her vice president, Michel Temer a member of another political party and under investigation himself could put an end to the probe, saving himself and most of the others implicated. Indeed, in the Chamber of Deputies, 303 of its 513 members were under investigation for corruption, as were 49 members of the 81-member Senate. Of the 65 members on the impeachment commission in the Chamber of Deputies, 38 voted to impeach Rousseff, and of those, 37 were under investigation for charges related to the Lava Jato scandal.

In case their voting patterns did not signal their intent clearly enough, some members of President Temers cabinet have elucidated their motivations. Senator Romero Juc, president of Temers Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, was caught on tape suggesting to Srgio Machado, the former president of the Brazilian oil and transportation conglomerate Transpetro, that a change in government would result in an agreement to staunch the bleeding posed by Operation Lava Jato, in which both were implicated.

With this in mind, Rousseffs claim that Brazil was one step from an actual coup no longer seems like hyperbole. But while her impeachment was, by any metric, profoundly and disturbingly anti-democratic, the aftermath of her departure presents problems of its own.

Rousseffs Workers Party has ruled without interruption since 2003, when da Silva was first elected. The Workers Party has implemented and run on extensive social welfare programs which have been credited with helping to significantly reduce extreme poverty, hunger and HIV rates in Brazil. It was on this platform that Rousseff was reelected in 2014. However, her successor, Temer who is not a member of Rousseffs party and is, unbelievably, currently banned from running for president, despite ascending to the position as Rousseffs vice president has begun to implement severe austerity measures. This is all in spite of the fact that Rousseff ran on exactly the opposite platform. Following the Senates approval of his budgetary amendment, which caps federal spending for the next 20 years, protests erupted across Brazil. Shockingly, even members of his own party have called for his resignation. Ronaldo Caiado, a leader of Temers political coalition, stated publicly that he should resign.

While reasonable people can certainly disagree over the wisdom and efficacy of Rousseffs policies and even her decisions, which, in fact, were fairly divisive in Brazil, it seems indisputable that her impeachment was a product of corruption and political tribalism. Rousseffs lecture was aptly named Brazils democracy faces several sinister challenges, indeed.

Connor Cardoso 19 can be reached at connor_cardoso@brown.edu.Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

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Cardoso '19: The precarious state of Brazilian democracy - The Brown Daily Herald

By Milan Svolik By Milan Svolik April 10 at 6:00 AM

On Friday, the Venezuelan government, run by the party of the leftist populist Hugo Chvez, banned opposition leader Henrique Capriles from running for office for 15 years. The ban follows a ruling a few days ago by the Venezuelan Supreme Court to strip the National Assembly, run by the opposition, of its legislative powers. The court withdrewthat decision after a wave of protests, criticisms from within the regimeand pressure by the Organization of American States.

Venezuela was once Latin Americas longest-lived democracy. The current crisis comes after Chvez and his successor, Nicols Maduro, have spentnearly two decades working todismantle its checks and balances. Why?

[6 things you need to know about Venezuelas political and economic crisis]

The events in Venezuela are part of a worrisome, worldwide trend that I examine in a recent working paper: Elected incumbents gradually subverting democracy. In the past 15 years, Vladimir Putin has turned Russias nascent democracy into a one-man show. Turkeysconstitutional referendum,coming up on April 16, may allow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to amass greater executive powers at the expense of Turkish democracy. And many observers of Donald Trumps campaign and presidency worry that a similar, if more subtle process, is beginning in the United States.

Weve seenelected incumbents subvert democracy before. Here is whats new: It is becoming the main waydemocracies break down today. Puzzlingly,many illiberal incumbents, including Chvez, Erdogan and Trump, enjoy or used to enjoy significant and genuine popular support. How come large numbers of ordinary people who presumably value democracy simultaneously support illiberal incumbents?

My analysis of Venezuela points to one answer: political polarization. In politically polarized societies, most voters have a strong preference for their favorite candidate or party, often to the point of detesting those at the other political extreme. In Venezuela, for instance, more voters identify at the extreme left or right than in the middle.

[Heres how the opposition got a two-thirds supermajority in Venezuela]

An illiberal incumbent can present supporters with a Faustian choice: Choose me and my appealing platform, or choose someone whose democratic credentials you may like but whose policies you despise. In Venezuela and potentially in other sharply polarized electorates a significant fraction of the incumbents supporters are willing to sacrifice fair, democratic competition in favor of an incumbent who champions their interests.

How I did my research

To evaluate thishypothesis, I designed an experiment that examines whether even democratically-minded voters may be willing to trade off democratic principles for their partisan allegiances when confronted with a choice that pits the two against each other.

As part of a nationally representative survey of Venezuelan voters conducted in fall 2016, I asked respondents to choose between two candidates whose characteristics varied along several dimensions. All but two were feints to conceal my main interest: Were voters willing to accept undemocratic political reforms in exchange for economic policies that cater to their interests?

In one version of this experiment, for instance, respondents were asked to choose between a candidate who proposed to maintain the current, heavily partisan composition of the Venezuelan Electoral Commission and Supreme Court and one who would reform these institutions to be politically impartial. To be sure, some voters did punish the illiberalcandidate regardless of his randomly assigned economic platform.

Crucially, however, such pro-democratic voters were almost exclusively ideological moderates who could afford to put their concerns about democracy ahead of their economic interests. One-third of Venezuelans overall, and a majority of those on the left, were willing to support an undemocratic incumbent as long as he proposed economic policies that catered to their interests.

What are the implications for other polarized democracies?

My finding that a significant fraction of ordinary Venezuelans are willing to trade off democratic principles for their partisan, especially economic interests mayunderstate the implications of this phenomenon for how vulnerable polarized democracies are to being subverted by elected incumbents.

After all, voting against an anti-democratic candidate when doing so goes against your own party is one of the least costly forms of opposition to authoritarianism. Nonetheless, a significant number of respondents in my experiment were not even willing to go so far as to say that they would do so.

If they are unwilling to vote against an anti-democratic candidate in a hypothetical survey scenario, they are probablynot going to take the many crucial but much riskier steps to resist authoritarianism such as protest or civil disobedience. Voters in polarized societies may become pro- or anti-Chvez, Erdogan or Trump first and democrats only second.

Milan Svolik is an associate professor of political science at Yale University and the author of The Politics of Authoritarian Rule (Cambridge University Press, 2012)

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This explains why Venezuelans reelect leaders who dismantle democracy - Washington Post

President Donald Trump listens to a queston during an event on Tuesday in Washington.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

Donald Trump has only been in office 79 days. And yet he has already dug himself into such a deep hole that a large number of commentators are declaring victoryor ridiculing the idea that there was ever good reason to worry about him in the first place.

Writing in New York, Jonathan Chait argues that Trumps popularity is likely to fall further still, leaving Republicans to pay a heavy price in the coming years:

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journals editorial page, crestfallen at the Republicans failure to repeal Obamacare, is consoling itself with attacks on scholars who pointed out the risks of a Trump presidency:

So have people like me, who have long warned that American democracy might be in danger, come down with a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome? Is it time for us worthies to get over our collective freak-out?

No, we havent. And no, it isnt. Its true that theres been some good news over the last months. And theres absolutely nothing wrong with taking a moment to celebrate our successesif only because we owe them to the millions of courageous citizens who have been doing their bit to stop one of the scariest moments in American history from turning into its most tragic.

Heres a list of the positives:

With impressive speed, a massive protest movement has emerged against Trump. #TheResistance is hard at work calling attention to the worst actions and policies of the administration. So long as this movement can remain energized for the coming years, it will be an important bulwark against a potential power grab by the executive. With a bit of luck, it might even help Democrats win back the House or the Senate in 2018.

More broadly, checks and balances are, for now, holding up reasonably well. The judiciary has done a great job at reining Trump in. Though they have repeatedly drawn the presidents ire, the countrys judges show no sign of being cowed by him. Federal courts have halted two executive orders on immigration and seem likely to take an active role in curtailing executive overreach in the coming years.

The executive branch, whose functioning could most easily be sabotaged by decrees from the White House, has so far preserved its independence as well: The intelligence community has resisted pressures to alter its findings to protect the president from allegations of collusion with Russia. The FBI is investigating Trump. For now, the neutrality of key state institutions remains on full display.

Finally, though Republicans control both houses of Congress, even the legislature has frustrated Trump at multiple turns. Democrats in the House stood united against the GOP health care plan. Democrats in the Senate stood united against confirming Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. While those parts of the far left who seem to hate moderate Democrats more than they hate extremist Republicans like to accuse Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer of being cynical corporate shills who never find the courage to stand up for anything, their determination has, over the last months, been clear to anybody who cared to take a look.

The story is, unsurprisingly, a lot more bleak when you look at congressional Republicans. Some, like Devin Nunes, have demonstrated that they are willing to stoop to any low, and to break any democratic norm, to support their president. Many, like Paul Ryan, have made occasional noises of displeasure before falling into lockstep whenever it comes down to an actual vote. Only a few, like John McCain and Ben Sasse, have criticized Trump in clear terms, and indicated that they mightat some as yet unknown point in the ever-receding futurebe willing to walk their talk. But while courage mostly continues to be missing in action among GOP officeholders, the incongruence of their ideological coalition has so far been just as effective in frustrating Trumps most ambitious plans.

Trump has mostly blamed the failure of the American Health Care Act on a small band of legislators from the deeply conservative House Freedom Caucus. But resistance from the Coverage Caucus, made up of Republicans from swing districts who refused to vote for the bill because it would have taken away health care from many of their constituents, were just as important a reason for its failure. This both spells trouble for the current attempt to revive health care reformsince any attempt to buy the votes of the Freedom Caucus is likely to grow the ranks of the Coverage Caucusand gives a preview of the difficulties Trump will face in passing other legislative priorities.

But theres also been plenty of bad news. This of course includes lots and lots and lots (and lots and lots) of terrible laws and executive ordersfrom employment to the environmentthat will make the lives of millions of people worse. But its not just policy; Im still worried about the effects that Trumps presidency will have on basic democratic norms as well.

For one, Trump has effectively demolished the safeguards that are supposed to ensure that citizens do not profit financially from holding office. Since he has neither released his tax returns nor established a blind trust, we cannot know which of his policies are intended to boost his private wealthor what foreign powers might hold considerable sway over him. There is every reason to fear that he may be profiting from the office he holds or changing his foreign policy to please his creditors. Even if hes not, his example will make it easier for officeholders at all levels to engage in corrupt practices in the future.

For another, Trumps rhetoric continues to violate every basic norm of decency and democracy: Even as president, Trump has spread blatant lies; undermined the press; attacked judges who ruled against him, implied that political adversaries from Susan Rice to Hillary Clinton should be behind bars; and endorsed authoritarian strongmen from Russias Vladimir Putin to Egypts Abdel el-Sisi. In Trumps campaign, the one constant was that he sounded like a would-be dictator. And as president, the one constant is that Trump sounds like a would-be dictator.

And then, of course, there is the sheer impulsiveness of his administration. A few days ago, Trump seemed to indicate that he was willing to leave Bashar al-Assad in office in Syria. On Thursday, Trump started to bomb Assads troops. If a major shift in foreign policy announced on a Monday is superseded by an even more radical shift in foreign policy carried out on a Thursday, the past actions of the Trump administration seem to have little predictive value for the future. So while Trump has mostly refrained from running roughshod over independent institutions in his first seventy-seven days in office, it would be nave to think that he might not decide to do so in the years to come.

So what does all of this add up to? There are now two paths forward. On the optimistic scenario, Trump will continue to lie, to break democratic norms, and even to benefit his own businesses. But despite his outrageous rhetoric, he will respect the functioning of independent institutions. When a court strikes down his executive order, he will tweet angrilyand comply. When Congress thwarts his plans, he will blame Paul Ryanand move on to see the next item on his agenda falter.

Our new series investigates what happened in the 20th centuryand whether its happening again.

Even on this optimistic scenario, the damage will be real. But it will not be beyond recovery. Theres also the pessimistic scenario, however. In this scenario, Trump will get increasingly frustrated by the media, by the courts, by Congress, and by the FBI. His extreme rhetoric will make more and more of his supporters willing to attack independent institutions head-on. And when some big crisis comes alonga terrorist attack, perhaps, or a confrontation with a foreign powerhe will start to ignore checks and balances: Claiming that terrorists were somehow aided by the media or by the judges or by Congress, he will expand libel laws or pack the Supreme Court or pass executive orders that vastly outstrip the bounds of his rightful authority.

Top Comment

No, no... Just no. Trump has done a lot of damage, and he and his appointees will continue to do progressively worse damage for the next four years at least. It'll get worse, as they learn the ropes, not better. More...

In countries like Russia and Turkey, the warning signs were there from the beginning. But though their democratic institutions had always been weaker than they are here in the United States, it took Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan a long time to consolidate their powerand even longer for observers to recognize that they were well on their way toward becoming dictators. Three months into their rule, each one of them was celebrated as a big chance for democracy by mainstream American publications from the New York Times Magazine to, yes, the Wall Street Journal.

All in all, I am a little more optimistic now than I was a few months ago. So far, Trump really has proven to be all outrageous talk and no real action. As Chait points out, the chances that Democrats might beat him handily in 2020 and banish his noxious influence from our political system are higher now than they were a few short months ago. But by the same token, it is about four years minus 79 days too soon to declare victory. The danger Trump represents for American democracy is far from banished.

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Democracy Has Been Remarkably Resilient in the Face of Trump's Assaults - Slate Magazine

New York Times

A Serbian Election Erodes Democracy New York Times Having severely curtailed press freedom and marginalized political opposition, his concentration of power bodes ill for Serbian democracy. Though Mr. Vucic won more than 50 percent of the vote, far surpassing the second-place candidate, Sasa Jankovic, ... and more »

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A Serbian Election Erodes Democracy - New York Times

In politics, as in life, there are few things more distasteful than a bully.

Weve see quite a few political bullies lately. Situations where political parties with majority mandates use their unfettered power to not only pursue their policy and legislative agendas, but also change the very nature of democracy itself.

In Washington, D.C., last week, we watched as the Republican majority in the Senate used its majority to change the rules for the confirmation of nominees to the Supreme Court.

Given the importance of the matter, the Senate formerly allowed minority parties to filibuster the presidents nominees for the high court as a way of moderating the power of both majority parties and the office of the president. Ending a filibuster required a 60-vote "super majority," rather than a simple majority. The super-majority requirement typically triggered bipartisan negotiations to bring a filibuster to an end.

All that changed last week when Republicans, tired of Democratic delay tactics, unleashed the "nuclear option." Simply put, Senate Republicans voted to change the rules that required a super majority to end a filibuster on a Supreme Court nomination. In an ironic twist, you do not need a super majority to change the rules about when a super majority is required.

Without going into a lot of history on the so-called nuclear option, it should be noted Democrats have themselves used nuclear options to limit the need for super majorities in other scenarios. More worrisome is the fact there are rumours circulating around Capitol Hill that Republicans may continue to change the very rules governing the operation of Congress to end the practice of filibustering legislation.

This is no small change to the foundations of American democracy. Filibusters, and other procedural tactics used by minority parties, are essential to ensure majority bullies must negotiate with their political opponents to achieve legislative progress. Take away the filibuster and other delay tactics, and you really amplify the power of the majority. And thats not really democracy.

However, Americans are hardly alone in this trend toward political bullying.

In Manitoba, the Progressive Conservative government introduced a bill recently that contains a series of changes to the way we conduct elections, including new, higher political donation limits, new voter identification rules and restrictions on third-party advertising. Opposition critics and democracy advocates believe the changes a mere formality given the Tory majority in the Manitoba Legislature are inherently skewed to aiding the current government.

In Ottawa, the federal Liberal government is also demonstrating an appetite for bully tactics. Last month, the Liberal government released a discussion paper that outlined possible changes to the way parliament works, including reforms for question period, debate scheduling and rules for committee business.

Opposition parties believe the changes could severely limit their ability to hold the government accountable. They are filibustering the proposals at committee until the Liberals agree to seek all-party support for any changes to the rules of parliament. The opposition filibuster prompted Grit House Leader Bardish Chagger to complain last week the government would never allow the opposition to have a "veto" over "our campaign commitments."

Its hard to overstate the absurdity and arrogance of that comment. At least Republicans in Washington had the decency to call their bully tactics the "nuclear option," a term that seems to acknowledge the gravity of the violence being done to a democratic institution. Liberals seem to think the whole notion of seeking the support of opposition parties to change the rules of parliament is, in and of itself, somehow unfair. Back in government less than two years and the Liberals have already forgotten what it was like to be in opposition.

Empathy is certainly in short supply in the scenarios described above. Even now, Conservative party critics howling at Liberal indifference should remember the absurdly named "Fair Elections Act," a law that was anything but. Its changes to voter identification rules are thought to have discouraged tens of thousands of Canadians from voting in the last election. The current Liberal government is in the process of undoing those changes.

Lamentably, rather than moving closer to a world of bipartisan collaboration or public consultation on changes to democratic institutions, we are surrounded by examples of mischievous, malicious tinkering by majority governments that seem to have no shame about making changes that, for the most part, seem to have less to do about improving democracy, and more to do with creating strategic political advantages.

Along with empathy, we seem to be suffering from a deficit of principle. The rules that safeguard the integrity of democratic institutions legislatures, courts, elections should not be changed often, or at the whim of a majority. And when changes are necessary, there should be a requirement to seek the support of both majority and minority political parties.

Ironically, the Liberals understood this need when it came to the idea of changing our electoral system from first-past-the-post to proportional representation. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had pledged during the 2015 federal election that recommendations for electoral reform would be made by an all-party committee of Parliament. Later, the Liberal government decided that any proposals from that committee should be put to the nation in a referendum.

The Liberals abandoned electoral reform as a policy priority, concerned that proportional representation would open the door to extremist political elements. Still, Trudeau seemed to understand that no government with a majority mandate should use that power to change something as fundamental as how we elect our politicians.

It would be welcomed if the Liberals in Ottawa and the Tories in Manitoba were to take a similar approach when it comes to any changes to democratic institutions. Or, perhaps, these changes could be undertaken by a non-partisan, arms-length commission that could sort through ideas that make the system fairer and more accountable, and discard those that seek only to stack the deck.

One thing is for certain: until we all agree that changes to the pillars of democracy are not the prerogative of a majority government, bullies will carry the day.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Excerpt from:
Bully governments degrade democracy - Winnipeg Free Press